


Valentine

by kla1991



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Coming-Out Story, Gen, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 05:22:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9864746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kla1991/pseuds/kla1991
Summary: An elaboration of Maggie's story about being outed on Valentine's Day.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It was really special to me that Maggie's story ran so close to my own, but it wasn't given the time it deserved. This is a little bit of a correction to that.

            When she’s twice the age that she is now, Maggie will still wonder sometimes how she knew she needed to be careful, and why she couldn’t have been just a little bit better at it.

            Today though, Maggie doesn’t have the money to buy a real Valentine’s Day card, and she doesn’t want to have to explain to her older brother Joe why she needs a ride to the store anyway, so she makes do with sneaking into her little brother Tim’s room to steal some construction paper. It takes her a minute to find a red sheet that isn’t just scraps, but she creeps out of the room before anyone notices, no problem. She snags the kitchen scissors and some tape and goes to work cutting half a dozen tiny hearts and one big one.

            It’d be better if she had glue to stick the hearts to the card with, but there’s been none in the house since Joe caught Tim eating it. Anyway, the tape gives the hearts a kind of pop-up effect, like they’re bursting off the paper. It’s good. It looks like how she feels.

            _Eliza,_ she writes in her very best attempt at cursive, _will you be my Valentine and come to the dance with me? Love, Maggie_

            She packs the card in her backpack, tucked into the pages of her math textbook so it won’t bend, eats dinner when she’s called, and tosses and turns for most of the night, grinning so bright it doesn’t even seem dark in her room.

            In the morning, on Valentine’s Day, Maggie snags the last piece of toast with jam she ever eats and shoves it in her mouth on her way out the door. The sky is the kind of shocking blue that only happens when it’s below freezing. There’s just enough snow left to hide the ice underneath, so Maggie forces herself to not run all the way to school. She’ll be plenty early as it is—way earlier than anyone else, so no one will be around to see her deliver the card.

            Eliza’s locker is number 203. It has one fist-sized dent and two long scratches in the pale green paint on its door. One of the hearts catches and tears on the slat Maggie slips it through, but there’s not chance to fix it—it slips out of her hand and into the locker without a single sound. The hallway is empty, so Maggie hops up and down in excitement for a minute before she walks away.

            In eleven hours, she’ll be sitting at the dinner table explaining what “first down” means to Tim when the phone rings. Her mother will grumble about those damn telemarketers calling during mealtime, then she’ll exclaim, “Oh, Mr. Wilke!” Then she’ll go quiet, and fear will slide down Maggie’s spine like snow down the back of her shirt.

            The trembling will start in her shoulders. Hugging little Tim while he begs their daddy not to make her go won’t stop it. Putting on her coat won’t stop it, and going out in the cold night air with her backpack and gym bag crammed with clothes sure as hell won’t. Neither will the tea and the bath her Aunt Alice gives her, or the flannel pajamas or the two quilts on the guest bed. Nothing will stop it, for days and days, until her body can’t handle the shaking anymore.

            But for the next eleven hours, Maggie is warm, from the soles of her shoes to the top of her head, in the depths of her heart and her whirring imagination. She believes, for the next eleven hours, that there is love all around her.


End file.
